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Citizens:

I knew a man named Arthur Robinson,

whose name sounds like a mockingbird to me;

but books’ and stories’ backgrounds had he none,

so he knew not what his name stood to be.

But he was wise in the lore of my day—

the current day, on court cases, not books—

and he sure had a thing or two to say

on instagrams and twitters and facebooks.

Tradition-trusting Arthur, red-court-fed,

preached all the day on where the law should tread.

But if Sandford again stood against Dred,

I fear to think what Arthur might have said.

And would his name be proud? The one that stirred

the multitudes to love the mockingbird?

~~~

Love tells not what it wants, but what it knows.

and i turn like a starved dog at the sound

your voice makes. and the starving always grows.

but no feast for myself is in you found.

the hunger craves to be craved, not to take,

but i tease neither tastes nor scents in you.

this hungry dog is starved for you to make

a meal of him—but his meal doesn’t do.

you pass my plate to no-one on your left,

and fast a fallow further in my gut.

will this starved stomach lining be bereft

forever of a food it knows not what?

I paint not now the pretty cupid rhyme,

but how love echoes empty most the time.